Product Details

• Actors: Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Patrick Stewart
• Format: Color, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: MGM Home Video
• DVD Release Date: May 27, 1998
• Run Time: 116 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (163 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304936532
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,430 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Lifeforce" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Director Tobe Hooper was a hot property after he scored apopular hit with Poltergeist (thanks in part to producer Steven Spielberg), so his follow-up film was the most wildly ambitious of his career to date. Armed with a big budget and a special effects crew led by Star Wars pioneer John Dykstra, Hooper and Alien cowriter Dan O'Bannon whipped up a movie that must be seen to be believed. That's not really a compliment, since Lifeforce isn't much of a movie when all the sound and fury is over. But you've got to admit there's something crazily admirable about a movie that starts out as a science fiction adventure about a mission to explore Halley's comet, turns into an alien-invasion thriller featuring a beautiful naked woman (Mathilda May) who's a vampire from space, and escalates into an end-of-the-world disaster flick! It's got everything you could want from a horror movie--from zombies running amok in London to rotting corpses and energy bolts to signal the apocalypse to come! Holding it all together is Steve Railsback as the Halley mission survivor who holds the key to mankind's salvation--but what fun is saving the world when you could be seduced by a sexy naked space vampire? Check out Lifeforce to see how it all turns out. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

From the director of Poltergeist and co-writer of Alien comes a thrilling sci-fi adventure of explosive action and pulse-pounding suspense. With mind-blowing special effects by OscarÂ(r) winner* John Dykstra, Lifeforce is a sci-fi extravaganza that delivers out-of-this-world excitement. A mission to investigate Halley's Comet discovers an even more fascinating phenomenon: an alien spacecraft! After a deadly confrontation, the aliens travel to Earth, where their seductive leader (Mathilda May) begins a terrifying campaign to drain the life force of everyone she encounters. Her victims, in turn, continue the cycle, and soon the entire planet is in mortal danger.And when the mission's sole survivor (Steve Railsback) sets out to destroy her, he comes face to face with the most charmingand horrifyingbeing he's ever known. Will he be able to destroy the lovely vampiress...or will he become yet another victim of her fatal charm? *1977: Visual Effects, Star Wars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 60 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars imaginative vampire twist December 23, 2003

By Deborah MacGillivray HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

This movie has a very original twist on the old standard vampire tale, with the horror Cult King director - Tobe Hooper at the helm. It is taut pace movie scripted by Dan O'Bannon (Blue Thunder) from a Colin Wilson (Max Headroom) book. The casts is a powerhouse, Frank Finlay as Dr. Hanns Fallada, Peter Firth Brit Colonel Colin Caine, the always bizarrely brilliant Steve Railsback, Mathilda May as the female Space Vampire (not many lines but she does make an "impression"), Patrick Stewart (pre Jean Luc) as Dr. Armstrong, John Hallam (The Mummy) as Lamson and Chris Jagger as a guard (Yeppers, that is the brother of Mick!). Add in some nifty Special Effects for the vampire victims and you have one really great time!

The vampire tale is rather worn, but they manage to give a fresh take on it. Instead of fangs and sucking neck, they suck the "lifeforce" from humans, leaving the body robbed of everything and looking like a "tube of toothpaste all squished out". Worse, in short order we see that it spreads like a plague with the rapidness of dominoes.

The movie opens with the return of the multi-national spaceshuttle The Church to earth. It's overdue and they anticipate something is wrong. When the board it, they find the spaceship had been set to flame, the crew supposedly all dead, and three perfect bodies in glass coffins. They haul them back, quarantine them, but they don't stay that way for long. They soon find out they are space vampires and are now a loose on earth. Enter Railsback as the US army Colonel, the only survivor from the Churchill who escaped in a pod. He tells how they found a strange spaceship hidden in Hailey's Comet. When they boarded the found the glass coffins and lots of weird dead bats-type things. He describes how after bringing the coffins back to the Churchill his crew fell under the vampire's control. In an effort to stop them from returning to Earth, he tried to destroy the ship and escaped. His efforts failed and now these vampires are a loose and must "feed" off energy of a human every few hours.

When the vampires break loose it's up to Railsback and Firth to save Britain and the Earth.

The pace is a roller-coaster ride, the premise is very fresh and original, good effects and bang on acting. So end result is really good film that stands multiple viewings without losing impact. So pop the popcorn, turn out the lights and enjoy a fun time. I mean where else where you see Steve Railsback making smoochies with Jean Luc Piccard?? It's Cult Classic heaven!

44 of 51 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An underrated Sci/Fi epic February 14, 2004

By Lunar Strain

Format:DVD

Though director Tobe Hoooper has had more downs than ups in his career, his film Lifeforce comes out being one of his best, following only Texas Chainsaw Massacre adn Poltergeist. Though initially a box-office failure, I found Lifeforce to be a refreshing story in the otherwise repetitive Science Fiction genre. That's whats sad about the genre; when filmmakers come out with somehting new and different, it flops, but if it's another ALien rip-off, box-office hit. This "vampire" story takes a new turn on the vampire myth, with aliens arriving on Earth that drain people of "lifeforce," the essence of life. I found most of the performances to be great, espiceally Peter Firth as British Agaent Kane. He makes this film totally believable. Steve Railsback is actually the weakest in the cast, but I have to hand it to him, he had a difficult role to play and he did a credible job at it. The effects are also very good for the time and the filmmakers use their fairly high budget to their addvantage. The one thing I hate about this film is that all people seem to recognize is the nudity. They forget about the story and focus on Mathilda May's body (though she I will say she does have a great body). This film goes far beyond the nudity. It drives me nuts when I ask someone if they've seen Lifeforce and they respond "is that the film with that hot naked chick?" So look beyond the nudity and find and marvel at the very creative story aided by the mesmerizing score by Henry Mancini and the London Symphony Orchestra. I found the film very good all the way through . Some seem to think the film fizzles out towards the end when London is in anarchy with zombies running around but I myself found it very exciting and the zombie scenes rivel those of even George Romero. One downfall is that the film fails to explain the relationship between the female space vampire and Steve Railsback very well, but overall this is the most refreshing sci/fi film that I have seen in years.

TRIVIA: The original U.S. theatrical and VHS release portrays a different opening title sequence. Also the mission statement of the Churchill spaceshuttle is written out for the audience to read whereas this newer release from MGM has it read aloud.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Expect some entertainment, nothing more April 22, 2000

By Eric

Format:VHS Tape

Lifeforce begins interestingly enough with a joint British-American team on board a shuttle who discover a spacecraft hidden inside Halley's Comet. From this point (actually at the very beginning) this movie grabbed my attention. The first 45 minutes were quite engrossing, as the details about what the astronauts found on board the shuttle began to unfold.

The three "humans" (two male, one extremely sexy female) they found encased in the space shuttle and were brought back are actually space vampires that constantly absorb people's lifeforce, turning them into zombies who must also take other people's lifeforce to become normal again, at least temporarily.

After all this, I felt I was in for a real treat. Well, the film's not a classic but it's far from boring. You see, Lifeforce gets a little too hokey for its own good when Steve Railsback and Patrick Stewart appear. The next 45 minutes are quite bad, not really dull, just ridiculous. Railsback really overacts his part in this duration and I almost laughed a couple of times. It isn't until the last half hour that the movie manages to gain some momentum again, as the climax features a wide destruction of London, and all at the center of it is one vampiress.

Despite a running time of just about 2 hours, Lifeforce felt rushed (particularly in the 45 minute sequence I mentioned I didn't like). Some of the sequences just go by too quickly. This aspect really doesn't help create a fast pace. It only makes the movie look clumsy.

Well, acting wise it's overall okay, surprisingly enough. So Railsback may be easy to laugh at, but Peter Firth and Frank Finlay hold their own and more. Of course, the real scene stealer would have to be Mathilda May, who plays the lead vampiress. There's not a single review below that doesn't mention her and it's for a good reason. She's simply the most beautiful foreign actress (she's French) I've ever seen. Heck, she might be the most good-looking actress on film. Her performance is actually decent. She portrays evil well enough and is actually rather creepy and seductive. And yes, she is naked for just about the entire movie, something of an added bonus.

The single most unintentionally funny scene in the movie must be when May is escaping the complex and the guards inform each other through the radio about having to look for a naked girl. The discussion they have is utterly hilarious and the British accent on the guy over the radio sounds like the guy on the top of the castle in the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

There's actually something for anybody to appreciate about this movie. There are the fine special effects, the gigantic set designs, a pace that is rather fast, and some decent performances. I have nothing really good to say about the script or the direction, but Lifeforce is entertaining enough to be worth a rental.